Sarah Jane Adventures and "Voyage of the Damned"

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yes, I do feel the need to make a new post when I change topics enough. Just in case you were wondering. :-)

We've gotten Small Child hooked on The Sarah Jane Adventures! Yay! I can't tell you how lovely it is to get her into such an important part of our lives. Were it not for science fiction television, Small Child would not even exist today, because her parents never have met.

SJA is for the younger set. It's goofier than Doctor Who (well, some episodes of DW, anyway), and the two teenaged leads are cute beyond belief. Small Child already wants to be like Maria. She pulled her sleeves down so that she was clutching the edges in her hands and said, "Maria does this!" Yes, Maria does. I'm trying to decide if I should lecture her now on not investigating the sealed-off portion of the school or fighting aliens by herself. Considering that she finds the show quite frightening, I think not yet.

We showed her "An Unearthly Child" a few months back--yes, all four parts. Yes, we're completeness freaks and thought she should start at the beginning. Yes, it was a mistake. She was Not Impressed. We may, however, be able to get her into the revived DW with "School Reunion," if nothing else. (But wait! Before she can see "School Reunion," she has to get to know Rose and the Doctor!)

We were laughing ourselves silly over the Slitheen, and Small Child cowered in terror. She needed reassurance at bedtime. Still, she can't wait until Friday to watch the exciting conclusion! It's tremendous fun watching with the Squid, bringing her into our world. And we have so much more waiting for her as she gets older! We're enjoying SJA ourselves, even if it is silly, because it's just such a treat to see Sarah Jane again.

I don't think SC will be allowed to watch Torchwood until after she's legal to drive, however. At the earliest.

An open letter to Russell T. Davies regarding "Voyage of the Damned":

Dear Mr. Davies,

I love Doctor Who. I have loved it for over half my life, and I hope to love it the whole rest of my life as well. I know you've taken a lot of abuse from people who don't like one aspect or another of the revived show. I think you deserve tremendous credit. You've done a great job bringing it back and giving it new life. I haven't agreed with every decision, but I don't have to agree with it all to admire your work.

You seem to have forgotten something when the annual Christmas special rolled around this year: namely, that it's a Christmas special. I was a tad nervous about a Christmas episode titled "Voyage of the Damned," but hey, when I gave it some thought, I could imagine that being quite funny.

It wasn't funny. It wasn't happy. I'm not asking for mindless happiness; "The Christmas Invasion" and "The Runaway Bride" had some very sad notes, and they belonged there. But those episodes had some hope, and some love, and some life in them!

You killed nearly everyone in "Voyage." That's the Christmas spirit? Did the Grinch forget to give you back your tree and your stocking and your roast beast or something? None of them were great characters, so individually they weren't a terrible loss--although one might hope that the special would give us a memorable character or two, and not just caricatures. But watching them die, one by one, does not seem awfully Christmassy. The "it's not really snow, it's debris" bit was poignant last time you used it; here, it's just a reminder that the episode wasn't what it should be.

I'm glad I watched it in April. People spent the day with family and sat down all together, mums and dads and grandparents and kiddies, and watched this downer at Christmas? For once, I'm glad I'm in the States watching on SciFi.

I hear you may be taking a leave soon. That's good; you seem to need a recharge. Better luck next time--and I mean that sincerely.

Best,
Aelf

PS I'm not even speaking to you at this time about that last Torchwood episode. Consider yourself lucky.

Comments

[gatechic.livejournal.com]

My daughter and I love SJA ourselves and we can't wait for S2 to start.

I couldn't agree with you more about VotD. I posted a little review back in December I believe when we first saw it. My mom didn't like it at all either and saw it last Friday for the first time. I actually told her not to watch it.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Ah! I went back and read your review. Yeah, the messianic imagery is a bit much.

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

The Eastenders Christmas episodes are traditionally full of bad news. I think the Doctor made mention of it in some episode (or maybe I've imagined it).

"The British soap opera Eastenders is renowned for its miserable Christmas storylines. There’s usually a death and a big drama in amongst our favourite Londoners festivities and apparently judging by recent rumours this year will be no different!" [1]

"If you take a look at what's happened in Walford over the years then you'll soon realise that Christmas has thrown more hardships at the chirpy cock-er-nees of Albert Square than your average book of the Old Testament." [2]

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

Found the quote. It's in Impossible Planet:

Ida Scott: We’ve come this far. There’s no turning back.
The Doctor: Oh, did you have to? No turning back? That’s almost as bad as ‘nothing could possibly go wrong’ or ‘this is going to be the best Christmas Walford’s ever had’.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Oh, that's classic! So apparently death and depression are a British Christmas tradition that I didn't even know about? I totally missed the reference in "Impossible Planet" and have no memory of the quote.

Never saw Eastenders, I'm afraid.

Love your userpic!

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

The userpic seemed appropriate. :-)

BBC America ran Eastenders for a short while. Nobody watched it.

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do feel the need to make a new post when I change topics enough. Just in case you were wondering. :-)

LOL, I tend to do the opposite. It's a wonder anyone drags through to figure out what I'm talking about! Heh.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I've missed things in people's posts because, for instance, they start with an episode I haven't seen and I quickly go, "Nope, gotta read later!" Then, of course, I never come back.

I, on the other hand, post in flurries, so that there are sometimes three posts by me right in a row, and I'm not sure how many people read them, or how many see my userpic and think "I've read that one" without realizing I've posted two or three. I should pace myself better.

[nialla]

I watched the pilot of SJA ::ahem:: early, and liked it, but it wasn't long until it would be on Sci Fi, so I decided to wait.

It is aimed at the younger set, but that's not really an issue for me. I like books supposedly aimed at teens and I never act my age anyway, so it fine. ;)

Sounds like the wee one is getting the show through the proper Doctor Who filter -- ready to cower behind the couch.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yes! Last night, in fact, she misbehaved so much that we revoked the possibility of extending her bedtime on Friday to let her see SJA when it aired. The tears! The drama!

We'll see it Saturday. Maybe she'll get to stay up next week.

[nialla]

Meanie. ;)

Some people think it's strange to like such a wide variety of tv shows (and books too), but I'm freakishly addicted to DeGrassi (though I've only been watching on DVD with the current series)and have been since I was in high school. I also like more "thinky" and adult shows like ReGenesis and Torchwood, and I don't see a conflict there myself. Variety is the spice of life, ya know.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yep, we're oppressing the Small Person.

As long as you enjoy what you watch, go for it!

[nialla]

I don't have my very own Small Person to oppress, so I just do a little of it to the library kids. I've got a much wider range of targets this way. ;)

[loriel-eris.livejournal.com]

I saw the first 5 min of epsisode 1 (ETA: of SJA) and wondered what on earth I'd missed, for it did not make sense. Further contemplation revealed that I had missed the Pilot ep. I've still to go back and watch it.

The 5 min I saw, I'm not totally sold. I think possibly because it is (to me anyway) very obviously Children's TV. Even if I'd known nothing about it, I'd've been able to place this at ~420pm on BBC1, maybe ITV (315pm-530pm/535pm was, and possibly still is, the Children's TV slot on BB1 and ITV in the UK. *g*) and I never really watched Children's TV when I was younger.

Oh, and bentleywg is right. I've only even seen about 3 eps of Eastenders, and my parents don't watch it, but even I know that Dirty Den served Angie the divorce papers on Christmas Day 198...7? (*checks* It was '86) when I was only 4, thus showing that a) Eastenders is an ingrained part of British culture and b) that nothing good ever happens at Christmas. No, seriously. If it's British and is airing in the couple of weeks over Christmas it will have a Christmas ep, and the chances are high that it'll involve heartbreak. *g*

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Missing the pilot of SJA would make it not make a lot of sense! :-) Luke's pretty important.

Yes, it's children's tv, and I don't know that I would be watching it without Small Child. With SC, however, it's a lot of fun.

Sometimes I think the Brits are rather strange. :-) That's okay; I'm sure the feeling is mutual! Still, serving divorce papers seems not quite as bad as killing all but three people on a huge vessel, including most of the sympathetic characters!

[loriel-eris.livejournal.com]

I can see how SC would make a difference.

I do not deny a certain oddness. ;) I think the divorce papers were possibly on par with a death in this case - I think that ep has the privilege of the highest ratings for anything ever.

Although, yeah, thinking back on VotD, there was an extraordinary death rate. Believe it or not, I hadn't quite realised until you pointed it out there. *g*

[aelfgyfu_mead]

It's not even just the death rate, although the number of corpses gives me something concrete to point out and say, "See! See!" The whole episode was just dreary. I didn't much care for Astrid; I wanted to, but there wasn't a lot there. The dialogue lacked spark, the episode lacked sparkle. I hardly laughed at all. DW can make me cry (and some good episodes have!), but it has to make me laugh sometimes too, and most of all, it should keep me interested!